Life With Sharon, or, How Much Can a Dog Take?

I'm OK! But this is a day I won't soon forget. Mom left me home alone this morning at 8:00 for the first time since Tanner passed away and I panicked. I'm not sure what time it was when I found a way out of the yard and went to look for her. I went to the park and a lot of people saw me and called to me, but you know how I feel about strangers, so I ran away. Apparently they called the police, because Mom was able to track me (it just took her a dawg-gone long time to catch up to me!). A lady told her she had seen me around the Heritage Apartments, but when she didn't find me there, she called the police again, and they told her someone had spotted me heading down the Hampton Rd. toward Northwood. She was incredulous because that's out in the country! She said, "Are you sure it was a LITTLE black-and-white dog?" So she drove down the Hampton Rd. AND the Northwood Rd. AND back again, and stopped at two places to ask if they had seen me. One said no and his dogs hadn't either, so she knew she had gone too far. She drove way back to the park and started over again, this time stopping at a place where she saw some people coming around from the back of place that looked a field office. A young man said, Yes, he had seen a little dog who was going down the road and then went into a raspberry field. So Mom said she drove into the field and walked and walked, and the young man and his wife and brother helped her look for me. I was lying in the grass, on the other side of a drainage ditch, too exhausted to go on after swimming across the ditch when I heard her call my name. All I could do was raise my head, but she saw me and told me to stay there. Like I could move! The young man, our hero, whose name was DOUG DAVIS, took off his shoes and shirt and waded into the thigh-high muck, came across the chest-high water in the ditch and rescued me. Mom and I were so happy, but I think we were both in shock. We were also very stinky - do you know what's in a drainage ditch? in cow country? Among other things, fertilizer in its raw form. I hope Doug was able to get all the stink off, but I know that I've had two baths and I still have something of an "aura." Mom used a loofah on herself and threw away her shirt. I don't think it smells that bad - I would have rolled in it anyway, but Mom's going to make an appointment with the groomer tomorrow.

By the way, for dinner I got...CHICKEN!!! in bed...by hand.

Well, Mom learned her lesson. She won't ever let me out of her sight again unless she knows I can't possibly escape. That's OK with me - my legs are tired and my pads are sore. An eight-hour walk is too much for an old, fat dog like me!